Internal bills to create state-funded school vouchers advance and draw criticism

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(GA Recorder) – Two bills drafted by Republican Woodstock State Rep. Wes Cantrell, aimed at giving families choice over where to send their children to school, were introduced to committees on Tuesday. of the House, including one that could make taxpayer-funded school vouchers available to all. Georgia students.

House Bill 999, which passed a House Education Subcommittee, and House Bill 60, which passed the entire House Education Committee, to expand the state’s school choice options to include private operations, but the old bill could potentially affect many more students.

“We need to focus on student funding, not systems, because one size does not fit all, especially when it comes to education,” Cantrell said. “We already fund students directly with Pell grants and the GI Bill for higher education. The same goes for pre-K programs like Head Start. All I ask is that we follow the same logic for kindergarten and for higher education. Let’s apply it to K-12. education and funding students, not systems.

Representative Wes Cantrell. Recorder Ross Williams/Georgia

Some parents, education experts and Democrats on the committee disagreed. They were skeptical of what they said was a plan to take public funds and funnel them to institutions that don’t have government oversight or strict requirements for teachers.

The committee passed HB 60 last year with the intention of providing scholarships to a limited number of Georgian students to spend on private school tuition or other educational needs, including tutoring or therapy for children with special needs. The number of participating students would be capped at a quarter of one percent of the state’s total enrolled population in the first year, and that number would increase by another quarter of a percent each year, with the state fully funding its formula. education up to a maximum of 2.5% of all enrolled students after ten years.

Using October 2021 figures and without considering future growth, this would mean that the program would have around 4,350 students in the first year and a maximum of around 43,500.

The amount of the scholarship would be based on the state’s share of the per-student cost of public education, currently about $6,400, Cantrell said. To be eligible, students would have to be enrolled in a Georgia public school and come from a family with an income below 200% of the federal poverty level — $55,500 for a family of four — or meet the one of many other criteria, including children children adopted from foster care, children with a military parent on active duty, children with an Individual Education Plan or Section 504 Plan due to one of a list of conditions or having spent the last school year at a school that did not offer in-person instruction.

House Bill 999 would be available to all public school students and would include an annual scholarship of $6,000, 95% of the cost per student. It would be up to the House Appropriations Committee to determine how many students could participate, Cantrell said.

The bills are mutually exclusive, so if House Bill 999 passes the Committee of the Whole, members will have to decide which one to send to the House for a floor vote.

Public schools often do a great job, said Cantrell, a former teacher, but some students may simply not be a good fit for the school they are assigned to based on where they live.

Cantrell said the plans will save public schools money by reducing class loads and keeping some scholarship money in schools.

“For every student that would take a program like this, it would actually save the school $3,800 on average, so you’re not taking away public school funding, you’re actually adding, and funding by pupil increases,” he said.

“It’s not one or the other,” he added. “We have the ability to do both. I don’t think we should say, ‘Well, we’re not going to give parents a choice because we need more counselors in the school, and if we give a choice, then the numbers don’t don’t lie”. It saves public schools money, saves the state money, 5% for each student.

Gwinnett County mother Holly Terei said her 11-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and is falling behind because her district is using virtual learning.

“My daughter’s mental health continues to deteriorate and her learning loss continues to accumulate,” she said. “The lack of access to school choice in the state of Georgia has now created a very deep and wide learning gap between my daughter and her peers. Now I ask you to imagine this on a scale much bigger, because that’s what we face when students can’t access quality education.

Terei previously told Fox News that she pulled her children from public schools because of the district’s mask mandate and was involved in a lawsuit over the mandate. She told the committee that her other daughter, a third-grader, barely remembers what a school is like in person, and it pains her to think about where she would be academically if she were at another school.

“My family is unable to move to another county,” she said. “My family can’t afford private lessons. My family can’t afford to become a single-earner household for a parent to adequately homeschool, and so we’re stuck.

But the alternatives to public schools available in populated counties like Gwinnett aren’t as readily available in rural Georgia.

“Consider that the student leaving Bacon County’s larger schools would have no private school option in the county,” said Stephen Owens, senior K-12 education policy analyst at Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. “She would also leave a system that protects against discrimination based on income, sexual orientation or ability. If she is not well served, the solution cannot be to fund a school that might expel her for being gay or a school where the teacher does not have a high school diploma.

“Georgia public schools are struggling to hire licensed teachers, substitute teachers and bus drivers,” he added. “Our state has been unable to afford even one counselor for every 450 students at the school, a pittance considering best practice of one for every 250. We remain one of six states in the country that does not provide no additional funding to educate students living in poverty. Any dollar we spend on this voucher should instead be used to protect the underfunded public schools that the state has a constitutional responsibility to support.

Others questioned whether the funds would be of much use to low-income or rural families, suggesting they could simply amount to vouchers for families already sending their children to private schools.

Cindy Battles, policy and engagement director for the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, said the program would not have benefited her son, who struggled to cope in public school.

“For years he struggled with depression. My 12-year-old was threatening to kill himself,” she said. “And yes, I looked, I tried this idea of ​​private education, even with your $6,000 scholarship, it wouldn’t have been enough because I was raising two children. Even if I could have afforded it, the school that would have taken him was clear throughout the county. It may help a few kids, but it hurts a lot of kids, like mine, who grew up to be a Marine, by the way, and I’m very proud of him.

Cindy Battles. Recorder Ross Williams/Georgia

Cantrell said the program is unlikely to be suitable for all students, but he hopes it will be a major benefit for the minority who need it.

“All I’m trying to do is, whatever that person’s story is, (make sure) they have an option, and it might not work for them in their situation,” did he declare. “Actually it probably won’t work for that many people, we’re talking about a small percentage of people that it will help, but that’s a significant number of people, whether it’s 500 or 1,000.”

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